Deadliest coal mine explosion in China in years kills at least 82, officials say

BEIJING — A gas explosion at a coal mine in China’s northern Shanxi province killed at least 82 people, local officials said Saturday, in what was the country’s deadliest mining accident in recent years.

The official Xinhua News Agency said the accident at Changzhi city’s Liushenyu coal mine happened Friday evening.

At a news conference late Saturday, local authorities said 82 people were dead and more than 120 were hospitalized. Two were still missing. The death toll was revised from earlier reports by state broadcaster CCTV that had put the death toll at 90.

The explosion was under investigation, local officials said, adding that there were “serious violations” of the law by the mine’s operator, without elaborating.

Earlier Saturday, Xinhua reported that rescue work was pressing on a day after the accident, with hundreds of rescuers and medical personnel sent to the site. Among the injured, many were hurt by toxic gas, according to CCTV.

Chinese President Xi Jinping has called for an all-out effort to rescue the missing, Xinhua reported. Xi also called for a “thorough investigation” and accountability “in accordance with the law.”

Xinhua later reported that those in charge of the company involved in the mine accident have been “placed under control,” citing the local emergency management bureau.

An investigation team sent by China’s State Council, equivalent to the country’s Cabinet, would be conducting a “rigorous and uncompromising” probe into the deadly explosion, a separate Xinhua report said following Xi’s remarks.

Wang Yong, one of the hospitalized miners, told CCTV in a video interview that he smelled sulfur “like firecrackers” and saw smoke.

“I told people to run,” he said. “As I ran, I saw people being choked by the smoke. And then I blacked out.”

The state broadcaster also reported that blueprints provided by the coal mine did not match the actual layout, hampering rescue efforts.

The coal mine, operated by the Shanxi Tongzhou Coal & Coke Group with an annual production capacity of 1.2 million tons, was placed on a national list of disaster-prone coal mines by China’s National Mine Safety Administration in 2024 for having “high gas content.”

Shanxi province is known as China’s main coal mining province. With a size larger than Greece and a population of around 34 million, the province’s hundreds of thousands of miners extracted 1.3 billion tons of coal last year, almost a third of China’s total.

In China, coal remains a key energy source due to its lower cost and high availability, even as the country accelerates its transition toward green energy. Mining disasters have been common although authorities had implemented measures to improve safety over the past years.

In February 2023, 53 people were killed after a collapse at an open-pit mine in northern China’s Inner Mongolia region. In November 2009, an explosion at a mine in northeastern China’s Heilongjiang province killed 108, according to state media.